Live Your Road Trip Dream: Travel For A Year For The Cost Of Staying Home

By: Phil and Carol White 
Publisher: RLI Press 
Publication Date: March 2008 
ISBN: 978-0-9752928-3-9 
Reviewed by: Lauren E. Victor 
Review Date: April 2009

Perhaps you have imagined a life on the road, but just didn’t think it would be practical or affordable. Maybe you should pick up Live Your Road Trip Dream, a comprehensive guide to planning and traveling on the road. Written by baby boomers Phil and Carol White, who spent a year traveling the country in a class B RV, they share dos and don’ts applicable for all ages and economic brackets.

The Whites do an excellent job of covering every possible scenario: What do you do with your house when you’re gone? What do you do if you’re injured during your trip? How should you take care of your finances? And the list goes on. They provide budgeting tips based on their experiences with charts to fill in for your own planning, plus other practical items like a checklist of gear and a sample itinerary for ideas on how to organize one’s trip. They also include excerpts from their journal written during the journey, sharing a sense of the trip that they themselves embarked on.

Throughout Live Your Road Trip Dream, the Whites become your friends, the type who truly gives good advice. When they know a resource that would be helpful for a particular situation, they recommend the book or website. They share examples of their own trip when something worked or didn’t work out, and perhaps what they would have done differently. Most importantly, they recognize that their trip is not your trip and the information they provide is intended to make your life easier and you are free to take what you will.

If you didn’t think taking an extended trip was in the cards, this book helps open the door to the possibilities. Whether your trip will be shorter or even longer than the Whites’ trip of a lifetime, this book provides helpful information to address any concern. Although the authors are an older couple with a comfortable budget, they consciously offer advice applicable for all ages and for smaller budgets, as well. The Whites are positive and inspiring along the way, and leave you with a good feeling that your own dream trip can easily be a reality.

Quill says: A great guide chockfull of helpful tips and tricks for road tripping.